“Ah sure Pat Donovan runs a tight ship,” she said. “Smooth sailing with himself at the helm. Hang on, girl.” She stubbed out her cigarette and disappeared into her bedroom off the kitchen, returning almost immediately with a framed picture. She gave it a polish with the skirt of her apron, then thrust it in my hands.
A younger, slimmer Patrick and a curler-free Lucille flanked a girl with short, dark hair, holding a certificate.
“That’s my Linda,” said Lucille. “The day she got her scholarship to go to the university. She was the only one in her year that went. She’s a teacher now, like you. Up in Labrador.”
“How old is she?” I asked.
“Twenty-five. Same age as I was when I had her.”
I coughed to hide my surprise. Lucille was the same age as my mother, but to my eyes, she looked decades older.
“She’s two years older than me,” I said, taking one last look at the photo before handing it back. I had a similar one of my university graduation upstairs on the dresser. It was just me and Sheila. Dad was already gone and Mom had been in Washington, the keynote speaker at a conference.
Lucille propped the picture frame on the table and went back to her crossword.
“Five across,” she said. “That’s one for you.” She pushed the paper towards me, her yellowed finger pointing at the clue: “A quality not easily described (French, 2, 2, 4, 4).”
“Je ne sais quoi.”
“Je ne say wha?”
I took the pencil from her and filled in the answer. As she scowled over the next clue, I said, “I might go for a walk.”
Lucille reached for the purse hanging on the back of her chair. “If you goes left down the road, you’ll come to a little store. A can of milk would be good.”
“Keep your money,” I said. As I grabbed my jacket from the bannister, I found myself wondering if the store sold fresh milk. A few hundred yards down the road, I passed a woman pulling sheets from a clothesline.
“Hallo, Miss O’Brine,” she called. “Fine day on the clothes. Where you off to?”
When I mentioned the store, she shouted directions, and I soon arrived at the large brown house she had described far better than Lucille. A hand-lettered sign in the window read, “No tea bags ’til Thursday.” A few kids were hanging around outside, smoking.
“H’lo, miss,” one of the boys said.
I said hello back and walked up the steps, ignoring their whispers. No one was at the cash register, but behind it, a half-open door led to a kitchen. A few rows of white-painted shelves held random grocery items. Toilet paper was stacked beside cans of soup; cardboard boxes on the floor displayed potatoes, carrots and turnips. I saw cigarettes, matches, balls of yarn and chocolate bars. I’d secretly hoped for a celebrity magazine, hell, even a tabloid, but there were no magazines, and I didn’t see a fridge for fresh milk either. I grabbed a can of milk and was heading to the counter when several girls smirked their way inside.
“Whatcha buying, miss?” asked Trudy Johnson.
I’m looking for tampons, Trudy. Any particular brand you can recommend? I waved the can of milk at her. Would I be on display like this for the entire year, my every move and purchase critiqued? I rang the bell and a woman came out from the kitchen, folding her freckled arms when she saw me.
“You’re that new French teacher from the mainland,” she said. From the corner of my eye, I saw Trudy elbow her friend.
“That job belongs to a Newfoundlander,” the woman continued.
“Then maybe she shouldn’t have run off with the priest.” I winced, not wanting to have said it out loud.
I put the so-called milk on the counter and the woman snatched my five-dollar bill and made change. Then she picked up a broom and began sweeping her way out from behind the counter, the dust chasing me to the door.
I dragged my feet back towards Lucille’s house. The wind was up and it blew grit from the road into my eyes. I blinked hard. First Roy Sullivan, then the note, and now this awful woman. Why had I taken this job?
At the top of a hill, I paused to catch my breath. Behind me, a bicycle bell tinkled.
“There’s herself,” said Phonse, drawing alongside me. “How’s she going?”
I sniffed, looking away into the distance.
He put down one rubber boot, then the other, straddled the bike, and reached into the chest pocket of his sweater vest. Like a magician, he pulled out a clean, white handkerchief.
“It’s the wind,” I wailed, dabbing my eyes.
“Yes, girl, she’s blowing a gale.” He looked past me out to the sea, his gnarled fingers still gripping the bike handles.
“Phonse, can I ask you something?”
“Fill your boots,” he said.
I looked down at my shoes.
“Ask away.”
“Do people mind me being here?”
He ran a hand over his chin. “Maybe some.”
“What about the woman in the store?”
“Bertha?” He grimaced. “Don’t mind her. She’s not fond of mainlanders on account of her son.”
“Did he lose his job to a mainlander?”
“Worse.” His smile grew so big, his eyes disappeared. “He married one. He went out west four years ago and he’s not been home since.”
“And that’s my fault?”
Phonse put a foot back on his bike and began to pedal. “Seems like it might be,” he called over his shoulder. “Chin up, girl.”
Back at Lucille’s I wondered where to put the milk. Not in the fridge, obviously.
